Habemus Argentinian! Must Credit Underbelly!

I Think I'll Take a Flutter on the Argentines

Update: And just as I feared: he's younger than I am. I agree with UB's Wichita bureau that a decent PR operation would have strung this out for a week. And that now the vultures can go circle Queen Elizabeth.

Update II:MSN assures us that the new Pope is "The son of an Italian immigrant and a doctrinal conservative..." So, which parent was the immigrant and which the conservative?

Update III: I mock my own flippancy here but in truth I think I am onto something, which is my way of saying I think the Washington Post has it entirely wrong.

Update IV: He actually seems like quite a nice man, if the possible past complicity with the dictatorship can be factored into "nice man." I do like my Popes to be riders of the subway. But the more I read, the more I think the Goodfellas were willing to settle for him because he has almost no Vatican experience, which means almost totally vulnerable to control and manipulation by the insiders. My guess is he could live out his entire Papacy without ever getting the codes to the secret bank account.